Miller legal company, representing the interests of the ex-general director of Boryspil airport, Yevhen Dykhne, on Thursday filed an appeal against the decision of the High Anti-Corruption Court, which found Dykhne guilty of abuse of power and sentenced him to 5 years of imprisonment.
“An appeal is being filed today. We will insist on a full acquittal. There is not a single piece of evidence in the case that would allow us to find elements of a crime in it,” said Oleksiy Nosov, the partner of the Miller company, said at a briefing in Kyiv with the participation of Dykhne.
According to Nosov, the presence of a corruption component was not proved during the process.
“It is not even in the prosecution materials. They did not even try to attribute it to the fact that this was done in the interests of … or Yevhen Hryhorovych (Dykhne) received a kickback, for example. There was no such thing, it was not even proved, it was not even investigated,” the lawyer said.
Dykhne said that during the period when he was in charge of Boryspil airport, the task was to urgently solve the problem of the airport’s compliance with the requirements of international rules in terms of the level and quality of service.
“Under these conditions, of course, decisions were made that were not related to any possible restrictions,” the ex-general director said.
According to him, the charges brought against him and Olesia Levochko, the head of the airport’s rental relations service, who was recognized as his accomplice and sentenced by the court to four years in prison, may influence the decisions of other directors of state enterprises.
“How will the airport compete in the future? It will be exactly the same situation as in 2014. The war will end with our victory, it will be necessary to resume the operation of the airport, it will be even more empty. And where are the mechanisms?” said the ex-director.
He noted that over the three years of discussion of the problem in court, there have been no changes to the legislation, and the mechanisms for managing state property have remained the same.
Dykhne said that he had received two attractive job offers in public sector enterprises related to infrastructure, but he could not accept them before the court’s verdict of acquittal.
As reported, on March 1, the High Anti-Corruption Court found Dykhne guilty of abuse of power and sentenced him to five years in prison. The court also satisfied the civil claim of the regional branch of the State Property Fund (SPF) for recovering the damage in the amount of about UAH 10 million. Dykhne is accused of the fact that being in the position of acting general director of Boryspil airport, in April 2016 he entered into preliminary agreements with Arteria Group LLC and Coffee Bar Plus LLC, allegedly at a lower cost, without the consent of the airport’s governing body – the Ministry of Infrastructure – and without a competitive selection of the tenant. This allegedly led to losses in the amount of UAH 15.7 million: about UAH 10 million to the State Property Fund as a lessor and about UAH 5 million to Boryspil airport.
The materials of the case are available at the link: www.nojustice.com.ua
On March 30, an appeal will be filed with the Appeals Chamber of the High Anti-Corruption Court. After that, former Boryspil Airport CEO Yevhenii Dykhne, Head of the Airport’s Lease Relations Service Olesia Levochko, and their lawyers Oleksii Nosov (Miller Law Firm) and Artem Krykun-Trush (Rostrum Law Firm) are invited to a press briefing.
On March 1, the High Anti-Corruption Court issued a guilty verdict against Yevhen Dykhne, former head of Boryspil International Airport State Enterprise, and Olesya Levochko, head of the lease agreements department.
This decision caused a great deal of resonance not only in legal circles, but also among the thinking part of society. First of all, because Yevheniy took over the airport in 2014 with a loss of UAH 500 million. Already in 2017, the airport’s profit amounted to UAH 1.7 billion.
In addition, during this period, Borspil Airport doubled its passenger traffic, doubled its budget contributions, became one of the largest taxpayers in Ukraine, and began to take the top spot in the ACI Europe airport growth ranking. This is the first court decision to convict for efficiency and activity instead of inactivity.
The only way to restore justice in this situation is to overturn the decision of the court of first instance and justify effective decisions made even under imperfect legislation.
In the case of Olesia Levochko and Yevhenii Dykhne, the HACC did not find corruption; it was not proven that they acted intentionally and jointly; neither did they prove that they pursued their own selfish interests nor the interests of third parties. They did not harm the state. Instead, they were accused of the fact that the state could have earned more if “incompetent and inefficient employees of the State Property Fund” had not acted.
Why is this decision a dangerous legal precedent for all public servants without exception?
The day before, Miller Law Firm published a legal analysis of the HACCU decision with important arguments of the defense that were not ignored in the verdict. The material is available here.
During the press briefing, the lawyers plan to present all the case materials so that all interested parties can use them as a case study.
The press conference will be held on Thursday, March 30, 2023, at 11:00 a.m. at Miller’s office at 4 Vvedenska St., office. 1, Kyiv.
Please note: Media representatives are kindly requested to register for the event by calling Miller’s PR department:
+380 (66) 024 12 94 and in any messenger convenient for you.
